Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.IMPORTANT!

This is the ROBERT TEMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE. It contains descriptions and notes relating to almost 18,000 titles in the fields of British and American literature, being the bulk of the stock that has passed through our hands since 1984, with the addition of a few earlier items of especial interest. Books currently in stock are not included, and it is therefore necessary to supplement your search by looking at our Current Catalogues. For the most part full bibliographical descriptions are given, though for some earlier items, catalogued when computing space was more restricted the details given are quite brief. For an account of the conventions adopted, the abbreviations used, and reference sources consulted, please see our information pages.

Please note: The arrangement here is the same as that adopted in our current catalogues, and as there our larger files are presented in sections for ease of downloading. At the end of each section you are invited to browse the next.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

From the library of Ellen Terry, bearing her signature on the half-title, and her large ‘Winchelsea' bookplate, designed by her son Gordon Craig, on the front paste-down; with the subsequent bookplate of Geoffrey Harmsworth on the front end-paper. A pleasant association, and a distinguished provenance. Later state of the catalogue, the printer's imprint on the last leaf having no comma after ‘Wilkins', and the number ‘9' in the address lacking most of its tail. The half-title, last leaf of text, and two following advertisement leaves, were evidently printed as part of one half-sheet.

Lightly tipped on to the front end-paper is a good sized piece of paper bearing in its centre the signature ‘Tennyson', in the author's hand. Tipped on to the front blank is a sheet of notepaper headed ‘Deanery, Westminster, S.W.', bearing the following attestation: ‘By Mrs. Granville Bradley / Lord Tennyson's Autograph / Date of taking his seat in / The House of Lords / Tuesday March 11th. 1884'. This may very well have been the first time he had signed his autograph in this style, as (just) ‘Tennyson'! This copy is of the variant in which the two final strokes of the ampersand point respectively up and down; the ‘o' of ‘Co.' is in a slightly, not a very, compressed face.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

TENNYSON (Alfred, Lord, Poet Laureate). The Death of OEnone, Akbar's dream, And other poems. With five steel portraits of the author. Macmillan and Co., 1892. Roy.8vo; blank before half-title; steel-engraved mezzotint frontispiece and four plates (two signed by G.J. Stoddart), all printed on India paper, laid on; pp.[2]+vi+111+[i (blank)]; ivory buckram, ruled gilt on front cover and spine, lettered gilt on spine; a.e. uncut. Covers and end-papers lightly foxed; otherwise a fine, entirely unopened, copy in the rare dust-wrapper, this slightly chipped at head of spine and top-edge of back panel, more extensively so on front panel, but in no way fragile.

One of an edition limited to 500 numbered copies, printed on large Dickinson hand-made paper. According to the dust-wrapper, published at ‘CASH / PRICE / 21/- NET'. There is no list of plates, but they are bound in to face pp.[1, 17, 81, and 105].

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

TENNYSON (Alfred, Lord). Becket: A tragedy In a prologue and four acts. As arranged for the stage By Henry Irving And presented at the Lyceum Theatre On 6th February 1893. Macmillan and Co., 1893. Demy 8vo; blank before half-title; integral advertisement leaf at end; pale greyish-fawn wrappers, cut flush, front wrapper printed in black; issued without end-papers. Wrappers slightly frayed at edges; blank verso of last leaf very slightly dusty; otherwise a fine copy. Scarce.

First edition of this adaptation, which contains revisions made by Tennyson shortly before his death in 1892. The play was originally printed in a trial edition in 1879, but not then published; and in a published edition in 1884, printed at that time with an avowal that it was "not intended in its present form to meet the exigences of the modern stage". The present version is the first intended to be acted.

A souvenir of the first night. The presence of "Black and White" on the title-page is explained by the text on the back board: they were the printers of the volume. The astonishingly elaborate sets here illustrated were designed by messrs. Telbin, Harker, and Craven, and are depicted as in use, whilst Partridge besides providing the cover design provided the portrait of Henry Irving (and perhaps also that of Ellen Terry) in full - and extremely elaborate - costume. Besides those two, playing Becket and Rosalind, the cast included William Terriss as Henry II, Lacy as Gilbert Foliot, Archer as Hilary, Gordon Craig as The Youngest Knight Templar, Genevieve Ward as Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Kate Phillips as Margery. Loosely laid in is a holograph note on the headed notepaper of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre from Stuart Anderson "c/o Stage Door" presenting the volume to the actor who played Becket in the 1961 revival, apparently again on the first night.

Throughout denominated on the signatures ‘Vol.I', ‘Daphne and Other Poems', 1891, having been envisaged originally as Volume II of a two volume collection (or possibly an intended collected works), an idea that was not pursued. The present issue is in fact the correct first.

Second issue, the first having end-papers coated grey-green. Throughout denominated on the signatures ‘Vol.I', ‘Daphne and Other Poems', 1891, having been envisaged originally as Volume II of a two volume collection (or possibly an intended collected works), an idea that was not pursued.

Throughout denominated on the signatures ‘Vol.II', ‘The Isles of Greece and Other Poems', 1890, having been envisaged originally as Volume I of a two volume collection (or possibly an intended collected works), an idea that was not pursued. The present issue is in fact the correct first.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

THACKERAY (Wm. Makepeace). Reading a Poem. Communicated by Brother Charles Plumtre Johnson To the Sette [of Odd Volumes] at a Meeting holden at Limmer's Hotel, on Friday the 1st of May, 1891. Imprinted at The Chiswick Press, 1891. 16mo, printed in half-sheets; half/series title; engraved frontispiece by W.D. Almond, with tissue guard; 10pp. bibliography of privately printed opuscula issued to Members of the Sette of Odd Volumes; followed by 6pp. list of members, and imprint leaf at end; full French-folded parchment printed in red and black, over thin boards; uncut edges. Parchment very slightly dusty, otherwise a fine unopened copy.

One of an edition ‘strictly limited to 321 copies . . . imprinted for private circulation only'. This copy unnumbered, but bearing a signed presentation inscription from Johnson. Printed on hand-made paper at the Chiswick Press. Volume XXVII of the Privately Printed Opuscula. The text of the volume consists of a dramatic sketch published by Thackeray under the by-line ‘Michael Angelo Titmarsh' on May 1st 1841 in a weekly paper ‘The Britannia'. It includes a passing reference to Dickens. Van Duzer, 179.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

THOMAS (J.L., Ieuan Ddu). Cambria upon two sticks: Or, the Eisteddvod and the Readings, To which is added Two cantos, Entitled Harry Vaughan, And a Selection of Songs and Poems. Pontypridd: Printed by David J. Hopkin, Church street, 1867. F'cap 8vo; half-title not called for; slate purple morocco grain cloth, blocked blind on sides, blocked and lettered gilt on front cover; end-papers coated deep yellow. Nice copy.

Written entirely in English, on Welsh themes. Thomas was a frequent judge at Eisteddvods, and a promoter of the welsh language, and the title poem here arose out of a desire to castigate faults and draw attention to irregularities in the arrangement and conduct of such events as they tended to be organised in his time, believing that the cause of the language would suffer unless such correction should be made.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

THOMAS (Thomas Llewelyn, Scholar of Jesus College). Coal-mines. A prize poem Recited in the theatre, Oxford, June XVII, MDCCCLXIII. Oxford, Henry Hammans, 1863. One gathering, f'cap 8vo; half-title not called for; verso of last page of text blank. Disbound, and probably lacking a final blank; barely visible foxing of a few leaves; otherwise a fine copy.

Printed in Oxford by T. Combe, E. Pickard Hall, and H. Latham, Printers to the University.

Possibly a family copy, the front paste-down bearing the armorial bookplate of W.H. Thompson, sometime Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Two verse dramas and several poems. One of two similar bindings with different grains of cloth, the other being green honeycomb grain.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

THORNTON (C. Conway). A Ballad Of ''Bold Burgundy'' [sic] And other verses By C. Conway Thornton. Second edition. Printed for private circulation. Copenhagen, Printed by Thiele, 1890. Med.8vo, prinred on toned paper; half-title not called for; single inset dedication leaf "To Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales"; pp.[2]+[ii]+[3]-[54]; disagonally fine-ribbed vermillion cloth, blocked gilt on sides and spine, ruled gilt on spine, lettered gilt on front cover; a.e. sprinkled; pale grey end-papers. Very slight fading to covers and slight bubbling to cloth of back cover, but a fine copy otherwise. Rare.

Presentation copy, inscribed in the author's holograph in ink on the upper margin of the title-page to "Professor George Stephens / from his friend / the Author", and with a note in crayon on the front end-paper, possibly in the hand of the recipient, "In this second edition / are some corrections and / pp.31 - 54 are added. The author was with the British Legation in Copenhagen. No copy of either edition of the book is recorded on COPAC.

Reilly, p.472. According to his Prefatory Note, the author was prompted to publish this volume chiefly "by the kind notice of him given in the Fourth Series of Edwards' ‘Modern Scottish Poets'". The last fourteen pages are prose.

Presentation copy, with the author's holograph inscription on verso of front end-paper. The book consists of four parts: I. a long scholarly consideration of the sonnet as a historical poetic form; II. original sonnets by Tomlinson; III. sonnets translated from Petrarch; and IV. sonnets translated from the Spanish, together with a brief historical sketch.

The author's first publicly acknowledged book, published when she was twenty-nine. Leaf G7 in this copy (pp.93-4), is a cancel. CBEL, III, p.360; Miles, VIII, pp.617-624, where Richard Le Gallienne characterises it as the quintessential volume of its decade.

Presentation copy, with the author's signed holograph inscription on the front end-paper dated ‘July 25th 1840', and with a small literal correction in her hand at l.5 on p.80. Poems written between 1813 and 1830.

Published at two shillings. First edition, first issued state of Trevelyan's scarce second book. A possibly somewhat disingenuous ink note on the front paste-down in this copy, apparently in the author's holograph, reads: "This is one of the original copies. Copies of a cancelled p.32, with four inserted lines, have been used to stiffen the backs. The accident was almost immediately discovered, and some people were foolish enough to set it down to design." Due to the colour and nature of the binding, the cancelled leaf may be read by holding the covers up to the light. P.31 as well has been reset. The cancelled lines, which were inserted before the last two lines of the page in the issued text, read: "The fellowships have gone, save one in three, / In inverse ratio to the degree. / And we expect next year a junior op / Will, by the help of bookwork, come out top." The text of this first edition as a whole is very different from that reprinted in ‘The Ladies in Parliament' volume in 1869, the latter being very much shortened as well as very heavily revised.

Avowedly the first collected edition of three of the pieces, which were originally published anonymously or under the pseudonym ‘H. Broughton' between 1858 and 1863; first publication of the remaining two, as also of the Preface and the copious authorial explanatory notes. Despite Trevelyan's modest dismissal of his youthful work in his Preface, some at least of the reprinted pieces have been so entirely re-written as to be almost unrecognisable! CBEL, III, p.918. In this copy p.[35], l.1 has the misprint ‘diadvantage' for ‘disadvantage'. Issue significance, if any, not known.

"Written for the amusement of a Child of Seven Years Old, whose name appears in the Title Page. He is a Grandson of the late S.T. Coleridge, Esq." - author's note, the child in question being of course Derwent Moultrie Coleridge. The poems deal with the production of the bread, milk, honey-comb, eggs, tea, coffee, sugar, etc. supposed to have appeared on the child's breakfast table.

Very competent domestic verse, written over a twenty year period. The author's name appears on the dedication. The grain of the cloth used here is both pleasant and very unusual. It consists of ribs made up of vertically ranged sets of comma shaped dots between each two of which are triple horizontal cross lines like woof threads, the effect being that of a coarsely woven repp.

Originally published earlier in the same year. This second edition is very important, since, in addition to the revisions, which extend throughout, nearly one third has been added to the whole. The discrepancy in the pagination results from the fact that the first gathering, which was evidently set last, contains, correctly, only six leaves, though it is paginated to 16, the space of a full 8vo gathering having been left to accommodate the prelims. This edition not in CBEL.

The conjugate pair of leaves at the end are almost certainly integral, having presumably been printed conjugate with the six leaves of the preliminary gathering, making up one full sheet. CBEL, III, p.310; Miles, X.

One of an edition limited to 125 numbered copies, printed at the De Vinne Press in March, 1898, this copy being signed by the author. With a signed holograph poem by the author, beginning ‘This is the Gospel of labour . . .', on the front end-paper. The poem, which makes reference to the contents of the volume, is dated ‘April 27th 1898'.

The subject of the title poem is Merlin Caledonius, author of some poems preserved in the ‘Four ancient Books of Wales' and portions of the Merlinian poems. The poem is set in the years following the decicive battle of Ardderyd in 573, when the contest lay between the Pagan and Christian forces of the time, and Merlin fought on the losing side. Reilly, p.486

Stephen, who edited the volume as well as providing the lengthy Preface, quotes in the latter from several of the author's letters - to such effect that one is left aching for a volume of them as well (or possibly instead) - and also wishing to find the author's fiction! The present volume was published posthumously, and is the only book form edition of the author's verse. Despite the respectable imprint on the title-page, it has about it the air of a memorial, and may have been issued semi-privately, in, probably, a very small edition. The spine bears merely the title ‘Poems', and is without a publisher's imprint, a monogram ‘MV' appearing at the tail in its stead. With the small book label of Dorothea Ionides on the front paste-down, and a presentation inscription, dated Dec.28 - 1893, to her from her mother [Mrs. Luke Ionides] on the upper margin of the half-title page. The Ionides' were numbered amongst the author's close friends, and are mentioned in Stephen's Biographical Note. CBEL, III, p.361.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

WAGNER (Richard). Tristan and Isolde From the German of Richard Wagner In the mixed Alliterative and Rhyming Metres Of the Original by Alfred Forman Translator of Der Ring des Nibelungen With facsimile of an inscription by the Author to the Translator. David Nutt, 270 Strand, 1897. Facsimile frontispiece; leaf bearing sonnet by the translator, and Translator's Note leaf, follow title-page; 8pp. integral advertisements at end; pp.[viii]+76+[8]; bevelled cerise buckram, lettered gilt on spine; a.e. uncut. Very nice copy.

First trade edition, preceded by a small privately circulated edition of which a review appears amongst the advertisements at the end.

Includes translations from Homer, Theognis, Herodotus, Euripides, Theocritus, Horace, Martial, Hildebertus, Flaminius, Hieronymus Amaltheus, etc. The author's own copy, specially bound, bearing his initials on the original front end-paper, and his signature in full on the front binder's end-paper; with one holograph correction (of a literal) in the text; and clippings of three further short printed translations (from Meleager and Strato) laid on to the original back pastedown.

A mixture of poetry, short stories and sketches. Walker, born about 1809, was a native of Leeds, in which place the present volume was printed. He published one other volume, ‘Wayside Flowers, or Poems, lyrical and descriptive', which appeared in 1840. A self-taught woollen worker, at some time employed in a mill at Morley, he is yet said to have numbered among his friends Laman Blanchard, and Lord Morpeth. A brief biographical notice of Walker, cut from a newspaper, is tipped on to the front end-paper of the present copy.

The author's first book, published when he was only seventeen. Among the ‘other poems' are translations from several languages, and a specimen translation from the Iliad written in imitation of Scott's ‘Marmion'. Scott's name appears among the formidable list of subscribers to the volume, which reveals that to the 1st March, 1813, over 920 copies had been subscribed for. CBEL, III, p.1028.

ROBERT TEMPLE BOOKSELLERS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ARCHIVE, File H: Nineteenth Century Poetry & Drama. All books first editions and first printings, except as stated.

WALLER (Sidney). Not A Drum was heard o'er The Soldier's Grave. Written on the Death of Genl. Sir John Moore. Composed and Dedicated to Mr. Braham by Sidney Waller. W. & S. Wybrow, N.D. [c.1822]. Engraved music, with text, 4pp. Nice copy.

Reilly, p.288. Printed on large Dutch hand-made paper. Though it carries no limitation notice, this is presumably one of the "limited edition of 50 copies printed on large paper" referred to by Reilly.

According to the Preface: "The recent erection by subscription of an elegant obelisk of Aberdeen granite to the memory of Walter Watson, in his native village of Chryston" prompted the publication of this collected edition of his poems, which includes, in addition to the entire contents of his first volume, ‘Miscellaneous Scotch Poetry', which appeared in 1808, the additions made in the various selected editions published up until 1853 (the year before the author's death), together with some poems hitherto unpublished. All the previous volumes "have been carefully looked over for the purpose of making the present edition as complete and satisfactory as possible." In addition to the poems, the volume includes the author's Preface to the edition of 1808, and an extended biographical sketch. The Preface is signed ‘A.D.R.'.